New MS Flight Sim shown at E3

[rphillips54 1]

6 hours ago, Sethos1988 said:

Game Pass is a service that allows access to a full library of games at a monthly fee. Something a lot of platforms, including Microsoft has pushed heavily for years now. It's not a service to provide exclusive games that you need to subscribe for. Everything can still be bought outright. The idea is to let people play and try hundreds of games at a small price, instead of buying one game at 60 dollars.

Excuse my ingrnoance then. That's a relief!

[GSalden 4,700]

I am curious if the whole world is ready for cloud flying or that at this time we are talking about several areas...

As several current addon scenery is there in P3D and X-Plane version I can imagine that making a MS version wouldn’t be to difficult...

 

[irrics 1,517]

This is truly exciting.

Other than Google and maybe Apple only Microsoft Could really do a scenery project like this simply due to the data collection, costs and technology requirements.

I think all of us in the FS space have been hoping for this type of scenery approach since the very first time we saw Google earth with 3D buildings. 

If done correctly this should render the OrbX region type of stuff obsolete but hopefully will leave a niche for them for the actual airport and other smaller level details. 

 

Edited June 10, 2019 by irrics

[anden145 2,299]

Emotions surely are frail in these types of discussions... 

It's kinda interesting (from a psychological standpoint) to witness the forums, when these news break... People very quickly flock into two types of groups;

• The 'Nay-sayers' who's pessimistic and cautiously are viewing the situation, but with from a slightly negative perspective and are 'doom-sayers' when it comes to future and promise of discussed product.
• The 'Yay-sayers', who's jumping and cheering at the thought of a new product and are (over)analyzing every little detail, while at the same time, drawing own conclusions as to what it means and with regards to what is included in the final product.

in my opinion, the meaning and ramifications of this product is currently unknown. We have simply no idea of what this means for our hobby, when we know next to nothing about this product, what it contains and what kind of simulation and platform is going to be utilized. But please, let us not forget, that we (the more hard-core simming fans, who's purchasing high-level addons) are a niche of a niche market. Currently I'm not at all convinced, that Microsoft is interested in building a simulation platform for us... I know it sounds brutal, but in my view, it's simply not economically feasible. 

I know it's not a popular opinion, but that's just my (unpopular) view...

I hope I'm proved wrong...

[777 340]

Those much-loved rain effects look brilliant.

[irrics 1,517]

Irrespective of how “professional” or “simulation” the final product ends up being one thing everybody should be excited about is their approach to scenery from what it looks like.

This is the future of scenery at least at the scale above airport level. 

Cloud computing resources, machine learning, artificial intelligence and satellite imagery all combining to create a hyper realistic “real version” of scenery for a game like this.

This is what we've always wanted.

Edited June 10, 2019 by irrics

[G-RFRY 1,725]

Lets not forget it was Microsoft with MSFS that opened up the product to third party developers that built the industry that we have today.

[Jim Young 2,356]

2 minutes ago, Anders Bermann said:

We have simply no idea of what this means for our hobby, when we know next to nothing about this product, what it contains and what kind of simulation and platform is going to be utilized.

It is the same as the old MS Flight and uses similar aircraft.  There were no add-ons so I doubt add-ons will be allowed.  Look at the old MS Flight forum here at AVSIM and you should have a good idea what it will be like.  From the pictures I have seen on their site, the IconA5 will be back.  I just think the major difference will be a worldwide area instead of restricted and additional aircraft.  I doubt any of the PMDG aircraft will work.

[stonelance 136]

4 hours ago, HighTowers said:

Absolutely! Which is why I was intrigued by the statement they have been working with some of the best developers in the business or something to that effect.  Figured this mustve been a secret project in the making for many years now. 

This is being developed by the publishing group at MS which works with external developers to develop game\entertainment products.  It is possible this is the "best developers" they were referring to, and not any in the flight sim industry.  I did hear from people previously working with Dove Tail that this team was trying to find people with expertise in flight simming to work with, including Dove Tail.  I'm guessing Dove Tail saw this and realized it was much better than FSW (or at least good enough competition), that they abandoned their plans for it.

[SoJourned 65]

Why now? whats changed in the sim landscape to enable this?

Streaming, VR?

[tonywob 4,770]

29 minutes ago, skully said:

What they do is give us the world to populate with details. The trailer shows us extremely dense city areas and excellent detail of outlying areas such as the Great Meteor Crater shown briefly.

Honestly, it's hard to say at the moment what is populated. But from watching the trailer several times, it does look like the cities they show are actually 3D Google-Earth style cities with no night-lighting textures (The give away on some of the shots are the bubble effect style trees you see on Google Earth 3D). It could just be a case of only a select few areas are high detailed models with everything in between being lower resolution and containing just AI generated autogen (This would be my guess). This is kind of like what Aerofly did, having some nice detailed areas and cities and the rest was just low resolution, with updates over time. I think there is always room for better regional scenery, better autogen, higher res textures, etc it all depends on whether Microsoft will actually allow it 😐

 

[Sethos 4,518]

3 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

It is the same as the old MS Flight and uses similar aircraft.  There were no add-ons so I doubt add-ons will be allowed.  Look at the old MS Flight forum here at AVSIM and you should have a good idea what it will be like. 

I very much doubt that. Flight didn't have "Simulator" in the title, it wasn't a mainline entry. It was clearly based around a very small area and not meant to be a full fat simulation product. This has got Simulator in its title, it covers the entire globe and they clearly put a lot of resources into this. They are very different products.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Sethos1988

[Chock 17,769]

45 minutes ago, eslader said:

Wouldn't be the first time MS engaged in a bit of.. Hyperbole in its advertising. 😉

 

Box art:

Actual product:

 

That said, I imagine the visuals will be excellent. The question is how MS is currently defining "realism." Merely including an accurate physics model isn't going to appease the simmers who are used to flying PMDG/Leonardo/A2A planes through real-world weather. On the other hand, having that level of simulation out of the box is a recipe to make the casuals look elsewhere.

 

If they're smart, they're gonna make a modern FSX - good bones for 3rd party addon makers to build on and give the hardcore guys what they want without making all the other guys pay for it up front.

 

Whilst it is true that those sim visuals look a bit naff to our eyes these days, and it is true they were not the pinnacle of what was possible at that time, they were quite close to what the limit was and there weren't really very many better 3D sim visuals than that about (that time being around about 1990 or so if I recall correctly), so I remember being fairly impressed by that version of flight simulator at the time.

[Chock 17,769]

21 minutes ago, GSalden said:

I am curious if the whole world is ready for cloud flying

Nope, only those with a current IFR rating. 🤣

[irrics 1,517]

Honestly guys, I’m as cynical as the next, but we should all be pretty excited here!

Having a massive player… The original player… Back in the game is phenomenal for all of us 

Edited June 10, 2019 by irrics